Indian Railways has set a target to convert to Green Railway by the year 2030. Indian Railways will be the first railway in the world to achieve such a status.
New Delhi. Indian Railways has also taken several initiatives to promote solar energy. It is working to harness the 500 Mega Watt (MW) energy capacity through the Roof Top Solar Panel (developer model). Till now, 100 mega watt capacity solar plants have been installed on the roofs of various buildings including 900 stations. Solar plants with a combined capacity of 400 MW are in various stages of execution. Out of these, tenders have been issued for 245 MW solar plants. The target of completing these plants by December 2022 has been set.
New Railway Plan- For land based solar projects at initial stage, Indian Railways has started a 3 GW Watt Solar Project in three phases.
In the first phase, tender for 1.6 GW capacity in railway plots for open access states has been floated on 29 April 2020 under developer model.
In Phase II, 400 MW capacity in railway plots will be developed under the ownership model of REMCL for non-open access states.
Tender for this has been issued on 16 June 2020. In the third phase, under the developer model on railway land, tracks will be set up for the open access states along with the tracks, for which tender has been issued on 1 July 2020.
Indian Railways is also trying to set up a solar plant on its land. Indian Indian Railways has 51,000 hectares of land for setting up 20 GW solar plants.
The power generated from these plants will be supplied to the grids of the Central / States or directly to the 25 kV AC traction system.
Railway Energy Management Company Limited is a joint venture company of Indian Railways in which Railways (49%) and Rights Limited (51%) hold. This company has been given the responsibility of looking after the work of solar plants to be installed on the railway land.
One such 1.7 MW project has already been set up in Bina (Madhya Pradesh) in collaboration with Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) and is currently under extensive testing. This is the first solar project of its kind in the world.
In the wind energy sector, 103 MW wind-based power plants have already been commissioned. These include the 26 MW project at Jaisalmer in Rajasthan, the 21 MW project at Tamil Nadu and the 56.4 MW project at Sangli in Maharashtra.
Indian Railways has also planned to set up 200 MW capacity wind power plants in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Karnataka in the next 2 years.
Solar energy to be illuminated stations
Realizing its role in climate change, Indian Railways has started green initiatives like lighting 100 per cent in buildings and stations through LED bulbs.
Indian Railways has also acquired green certificates from CIII for its 7 production units, 39 workshops, 6 diesel sheds and 1 stores depot.
14 railway stations and 21 other buildings / premises have also been certified as green energy buildings. In addition, 215 stations have been certified with Environmental Management System (EMS) / ISO 14001.
Head-on generation technology has been used in a total of 505 pairs of trains. This is expected to save about 70 million liters of diesel / 450 crore rupees per year.
Railways have also completed all of its 8 production units and 12 workshops under agreement with CII to achieve energy efficiency resulting in 15% improvement in energy efficiency.
History will become diesel engine – After railway steam, diesel engine is also set to be shut down. Because the railways have taken fast steps towards electrification. The Ministry of Railways has taken several major initiatives towards tackling global warming and climate change, with the goal of making Indian Railways fully green energy driven by 2030.
To achieve green certification for sustainable equipment and installations / stations with improvement in energy efficiency of railway electrification, locomotives and trains, bio-toilets in coaches and dependence on renewable sources for their energy needs and achieving zero carbon emissions Is part of the strategy.
Indian Railways has completed electrification of over 40,000 (RKM) (63% of busy routes), with 18,605 km of electrification work done during 2014-20. Earlier, electrification of only 3,835 km route was completed during the period 2009-14.
Indian Railways has set a target of electrification of 7000 km route for the year 2020-21. It is planned to electrify all routes of the busy network by December 2023.
Indian Railways is focusing on last mile connectivity and electrification of interconnected routes. Keeping this in mind, 365 km of major routes were completed during the Kovid period.
During the period of Kovid, the Katni-Satna section of Mumbai-Howrah (99 RKM) has been provided an alternate route to Howrah via Allahabad. Similarly, an alternate route has been provided for Maksi-Bhopal-Bina on Pachor-Maksi (88 RKM) section on Indore-Guna-Bina route.
On Howrah / Sealdah-SVD Katra via Patna route, Bhagalpur-Shivnarayanpur (45 RKM) section has been commissioned. On the route connecting the Kariyakal port to the coal, fertilizer and steel plants of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh, the link line connecting the Thiruvarur-Karaikal port (46 RKM) section with the port for Erode, Coimbatore and Palghat has been built.
